A L S T E A D

April Newsletter
A Note from Mr. Young

P R I M A R Y

S C H O O L

Dear Alstead Community, Alstead Primary Students and Teachers would like to thank everyone for their support of the 20132014 school budget.

Calendar & Events

April 3 Bingo for Books presented by PTO @ 6pm in the Vilas Cafeteria April 4 PTO Meeting 3:15pm @ APS April 5 Spring Pictures April 8 School Board Meeting @ FMRHS 6:30 pm April 11 Reports Go Home April 17 Alstead Primary School Play First Show @ 1pm - Vilas Gym Second Show @ 6pm Vilas Gym April 19 Arbor Day @ 1:30pm April 22 April 26 April Vacation April 29 - School Board Meeting @ NWS 6:30 pm May 1 Alstead Attendance Area Art Show @ 4:30 7:30 pm

April is off to a great start. This past Friday the students were visited by Ribby to begin this years APS reading challenge. The PTO bingo night is fast approaching. Please join us Wednesday at 6pm in the Vilas Cafeteria for Bingo for Books sponsored by the PTO. To keep up with PTO events, please check out their for the Alstead Play. It is going to be amazing.

facebook page. Students have also been working hard preparing

A Production By: The Alstead Primary School

Alstead ~ The Musical

Alstead ~ The Musical is a fun, informative play that gives an overview of Alsteads history. Through historical dialogue, enthusiastic actors, and original music, the students will have influenced our town. This is a lighthearted performance by our Pre-Kindergarten to Fourth Grade students under the musical direction of Lillie LeBlanc.

present important details about events and interesting people that

ALSTEAD PRIMARY SCHOOL

APRIL NEWSLETTER

Mrs. Pogorzelski
The Learning Center is Dino-Might
Dinosaurs roamed the Learning Center in February. The children in the Learning Center researched dinosaurs on the web and read books and stories about the different dinosaurs. They learned about what they ate, what they used for protection, how big they were and when they lived. All of their learning came together by creating a diorama of their favorite dinosaur. They then wrote a report on their dinosaur.

Ms. Ketchum ~ Grade 4

the bulletin board near the main entrance and many teachers have they are doing at school. Every students travel brochure is displayed on The fourth graders continue to impress teacher and staff with the work

commented on how fantastic they are! In reading students have been exploring communication to stay connected. They have been using their skills of sequencing and using graphic sources to increase understanding of text. In math, students have fractions. We have been focusing on comparing and the world of communication and how we use different methods of

been relentless in their dedication to learning more about ordering fractions when there is a different denominator. Students will now be transitioning to adding fractions with unlike denominators. The class continues to grow in their writing skills and is practicing using hooks to grab in a way that makes sense to the reader. In science, the readers attention, as well as sequencing their writing students have been applying their scientific method skills by completing experiments. Our latest inquiry task was a sled pull experiment. Students investigated how much force to increase. Ask them what we discovered!

would be needed to move the sled if the weight of it continued

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Ms. Harmon ~ Grade 3

Dear APS families, This week, Elizabeth Lyman, Alex Booth, and Serena

Rathke have created this newsletter for you! We hope you enjoy reading it! During Reading Street, we have begun our fourth unit

in history. Gertrude Ederle is one of the amazing women we

and are in the fourth week of it. We are learning about women

medals during the 1924 Olympic games.

the mens record by two hours. She then went on to win three

the first woman to swim across the English Channel. She broke

have been reading and learning about! In 1926, Gertrude was

problems in your brain without using paper, or pencils, or fingers. only use them for the nines trick! Well, the nines trick is, say you Ms. Harmons rule is, you cannot use your fingers to add; you can

is mental math, you ask? It is when you can complete math

Our games have been Break 200, Make 200 and Sum it up. What

In Bridges math, we have been working on mental math!

have 5 x 9, you can put down your fifth finger on your left hand. Then you count how many are up on your left hand, before that finger and then you count the ones left on your left and right hand. You should end up with 4 try! Can you solve 3 x 9??

fingers on your left and 5 fingers on your right, which makes 45. Now you Over the past few weeks we have been working on a research project

information, we have also learned how to create a power point presentation! ! They will be ready to go next week, and we will be presenting them to our class and hanging the power point slides outside our classroom door! We would like to give a big, big

about NBA basketball players! Not only have we been working on how to research

THANKS to Mimi, for completing TWO Easter projects with us! ! Thank you for reading our newsletter article. Sincerely,

Elizabeth, Alex, Serena and Ms. Harmon

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APRIL NEWSLETTER

Ms. McGuirk ~ Grade 2

I cant believe we are going into spring in the 2nd grade classroom! We just welcomed two new students to our room, Aaron and Madison. The routine. We also just finished an Easter project with Mimi!! In Bridges, we are doing the unit called they stay the same? We are also continuing to work on reading fluency and understanding what we read.

students are being very helpful teaching them our

In writing, we have continued to work on friendly letters, journals, weekly writes in our reading program, and special writes. In Fundations, we have been hard at work

Branching into Larger Numbers: Money and Place Value. We are also continuing with also continuing to practice adding with automaticity with math facts to 20, and we are regrouping and subtraction with borrowing. In Reading Streets, our Unit theme is Our do Changing World! How do things change? How

learning and using our 8 syllable types. We have just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and I look forward to reading Charlottes Web to the class this spring. grade classroom!

Happy Spring from the 2nd

Pennies for Patients

Our Pennies for Patients program was a huge success this year! Thanks to all who contributed to our fundraising campaign. Together we raised $402.79 to donate to The Leukemia &

Lymphoma Society. The class with the largest amount collected was Kindergarten - Mrs. Chaffee's class - with a whopping $123.25! Mrs. Chaffee's class will be receiving a Bronze Pennant from Pennies for Patients to proudly display in their room! Great job everyone! ~ Mrs. Therrien
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APRIL NEWSLETTER

Mrs. Hanatow ~ Grade 1

The First Graders have just completed a geometry unit. They used polydrons, pattern blocks, geoboards, and paper shapes to explore 2 second integrated unit. In this unit called My Little Farm, each child will have an opportunity to create a paper model of a small farm. They will use farm bucks to buy farm buildings, land, machinery, and animals. The math skills they will use involve Let the fantasy of farm life begin! and 3 dimensional shapes. Presently, we are preparing to begin our

place value, money, area, perimeter, mapping, and computation.

In reading, the students have been learning about fact and opinion, contractions, and summary writing. We are continuously talking about authors purpose, main idea and details, and cause and

effect. In addition, they are always working on finding evidence in the text to support their answers. RTI has moved along to word problems. The students are

using the CUBE method to figure out how to solve problems. The word CUBE means the following: C means to circle all numbers, U means to underline important words, B means to box in questions, and E means to evaluate what strategy to use.

Anniversary Play.

Looking forward to seeing you all at our 250th Alstead

Mrs. Neilsen Kindergarten

Happy April from Kindergarten! This month we will be working hard on preparing for our spring concert! In honor of Alstead's 250th year, we will be learning a little bit about what Alstead was like when the original settlers came to this the next 3 weeks! area! We will also be building a magnificent display outside our doorway, so please come check it out in In Reading this month we will focus on reviewing the many skills we have developed during the school skills!

year. We will still continue to learn new sight words, become better readers, and strengthen our writing

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APRIL NEWSLETTER

In Math we will practice telling time, naming coins and

their values, building models for numbers 20+, adding and

subtracting within 10, naming 3-D shapes, and much more!

Mrs. Chaffees Kindergarten

Kindergarten has been very busy getting ready for the big Alstead Anniversary show. We are learning about the history of Alstead. Our class is focusing on the Shedd-Porter Library. Our historic display will soon be outside our door! We are finishing up a math unit on Measuring. We are to tell time with analog and digital clocks, using thermometers to find the temperature, reading scales to find of things and using rulers to see how long, short, tall and are. We are also learning about the numbers that go make 10. We call them our 10-friends. ! learning the weight

together to

wide things

We continue to work in our reading and writing groups. It is fun to see all the sound out!

is being made! We have at least 50 sight words that we can read in addition to the words that we can

progress that

Thank you to Mimi for helping us make a cute bunny decoration! Looking forward to seeing everyone at Alstead~ The Musical!

Mrs. Smiths Pre-K

In the Pre-K we are beginning to study trees. We will be observing and comparing about what lives in them, what theyre made from, and who cares for them. We hope that this study will help children explore and appreciate nature. As we study trees, we will use literacy, math, the arts, and technology to explore the topic in depth. We will learn important social studies and scientific concepts through firsthand investigations. trees to learn

ALSTEAD PRIMARY SCHOOL

APRIL NEWSLETTER

Reading
Reading tips to try at home: Kindergarten

Mr. Gilbert

Reading tips to try at home: First Grade

Mr. Gilbert

ALSTEAD PRIMARY SCHOOL

APRIL NEWSLETTER

Parent Forum
Parents and Guardians Welcome! April 11, 2013 5:30 PM 7:00 PM FMRHS Library Thursday FMRSD Parent Forum

Easter Seals Autism Family Support Specialist Presenter of Safety Issues What Families Need To Know About Returns to FMRSD to present Organizing Autism Autism Awareness 911

Elizabeth Webster

Autism Spectrum Disorders involve behaviors that challenge every little thing about every day life- at home at school and out in the community....

This workshop will provide an overview of tips and ideas for organizing, managing and coordinating ASD in four areas:

Community Connections Family Fiascos (Managing the Mob) Keeping Track of Your Child Educational Efforts